


The Darling Cuckoo

by plaidbaby



Series: Bless the Little Children [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Gen, John is the Saddest Eggroll, Sherlock isn't using his puppet, Speaking with Puppets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaidbaby/pseuds/plaidbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Jim had gone away.  </p><p>John thought he looked quiet at the end.  </p><p>Like he wasn't sad anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darling Cuckoo

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the last of the Bless the Little Children. This series and Man and Monster and both going to be published as part of a small anthology. Look for information at thursdayplaid/americanjedi's tumblr thursdayplaid.tumblr.com on the Monster Love tag once it gets closer to October of this year. This has been finished because of the encouragement I've received working on that project.

Part III

Mr. Jim’s face went all strange and pinched sometimes. Too many teeth and sunglasses so no one could see how Mr. Jim’s eyes didn’t go quite right. Only John and Moran could see, because they were special. Because Mr. Jim loved John and didn’t want to hide anything from him, only wanted him to believe, believe that Mr. Jim would do anything to keep him safe. That he tried to be good, for John.

He heard Moran and Mr. Jim’s soft whispers in the dark. He had told Mr. Jim he didn’t want a night light anymore because he was big enough to know not to be scared. Sometimes he was scared in the deep dark, sometimes John thought Mr. Jim knew that he drew his legs up to his chest and thought about how there was nothing that was bad in his room like he could make it be true. Just his bed and his chair, and closet and his toy chest.

One morning he came and held John and breathed really hard like he was going to cry. Mr. Jim cried except when he was sick. “My love,” he said. “My sweetness, my dear. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you safe, that’s the important thing.”

Mr. Jim was gone now.

John had held Moran’s hand and they went to go see Mr. Jim on a table. They had to sneak in because it was in a big building but John told Moran he had to see Mr. Jim or his heart would burst.

The back of Mr. Jim’s head sat funny. 

The room smelled weird. 

When John took Mr. Jim’s hand it was really stiff and cold. That’s how dead people were. He made Moran lift him up so he could kiss Mr. Jim on the forehead. There was a little red hole there, Moran didn’t let him touch it.

“He doesn’t look sad anymore,” John told him. “He looks nice.”

Moran was really quiet and held John close for a long time. At night when he thought John was asleep he drank grown up stuff and yelled at Mr. Jim. Maybe Moran didn’t know Mr. Jim was gone. Because he knew it would make Moran sad to know, John made sure not to tell him. After all, Moran was his friend, even if John was better than him. When John woke up because his face was wet and his throat was sore, Moran wrapped his blankets around him until he was like an eggroll and wrapped his arms around him tight around him and rocked him back and forth. It wasn’t as good as Mr. Jim, but Moran kept whispering, “Stop screaming little man, stop screaming, you have to stop screaming or I’m going to lose my head. I was just meant to be the bodyguard, I can’t take care of kids. I never should have let you see Jim. I never should have let you.”

John didn’t want him to lose his head. He shut him mouth and pressed his face into Moran’s shoulder.

He thought he might be the saddest eggroll ever.

One day a bunch of people started knocking down their door when Moran was making pancakes to try and make John not sad. Moran made John hide under his bed because Sherlock had come. John remembered Sherlock. He remembered everything Mr. Jim said. Sherlock was the stupid detective. He killed Mr. Jim. There was gunfire. Moran made a sound like he was hurt. That would be bad.

All John had was Moran. 

John screamed as loud as he could and ran at the stupid detective. He pushed him as hard as he could in the leg so the detective stumbled. John was glad he stumbled. John wished he fell over and cracked his head on the furniture. He was an awful man and John hated him, he hated him. He had killed John’s Daddy. He had killed John’s Daddy and taken him away. John might have shouted some of it. He didn’t know. He didn’t know.

“John!” Moran shouted, and he sounded scared, which was wrong because Moran never sounded scared. Not ever. “John! Stop that, come here, come here right now.”

John started crying, crying really, really hard and he couldn’t stop. It was like there was a rock in his chest. He didn’t like it. He fell at Moran, who was supposed to be brave, he was supposed to always be brave, not scared, not scared. Moran wouldn’t hug him, he wanted Moran to hug him.

“Don’t cry,” Moran said. “You were supposed to stay hidden little man. The one time you decide not to do what you’re told. It’ll be okay. Don’t cry.” But he wasn’t looking at John; he was looking at the bad men with the guns. “Let me,” Moran said. “Please, just let me…” He moved his arms a little away from the back of his head, just a little really slow. “Just let me get him settled down.”

“I want my Daddy,” John cried into Moran’s neck, even though he didn’t look like Mr. Jim, and he didn’t smell like Mr. Jim. He was still Moran. “I want my Daddy.”

When John woke up from having gone dark and fuzzy from crying Moran was patting a cold cloth on his face. John’s face felt really hot and swollen.

“Moran, you don’t look so hot,” John told him, his throat hurt. Moran helped him to have a drink of water.

There was a man at the door with a gun. He looked mean.

“Hey little man, I have to talk to some people for a while. But I love you. I love you, love you, love you. No one’s better than you, you know. My sweet little man.”

“Mr. Jim loved me too,” John said in a very little voice.

Moran made a very sad sound.

“Is Sherlock make you be shot in the head too?”

“Be good little man,” Moran said, and kissed his forehead.

The mean man made Moran leave.  
John was still for a while. He was hungry for a little bit, but then that went away again. His head hurt and his tongue felt like a sock without a foot in it. People said stuff. 

He wasn’t really interested.

After a while he was done being still, so he got out of bed and walked into the hall with the blanket because it was cold. There was a guard outside his door. 

The guard looked at him and talked into his radio. Spy, John thought.

“Can I see Mr. Jim please?” John asked. Then he remembered Mr. Jim was dead. “Never mind,” he told the man. And then because it always paid to be polite. “Thank you.”

After that the detective came again which made him feel sad, and awful and angry. John knew he was thinking simple, but he couldn’t help it. It felt better to think like this. John tried to hide behind the guard, but that didn’t work really well. It was hard to walk. His leg kept going all limpy.

“Why you? What was so special about you?” the detective said.

“I’m John,” he rubbed his nose and then wrapped his blanket tighter around himself. “Can I see Moran please?”

“He was moved a while ago,” the detective said. He was crouched down and staring at him.

“You moved Moran?”

“Someone did,” he said, mostly he stared at John.

“Why are you so mean?” John said. “Bit not good.”

Then a lady with short hair came told the detective to stop he was distressing the boy. She smiled at him and told the detective to calm down, and that if he couldn’t behave appropriately without furthering the psychological trauma then he could excuse himself. She had a brief-thing under one arm. It was brown. 

“Can I see Moran please?” John asked.

“You’re very polite,” the lady smiled at him. 

“Being polite is just decent. Mr. Jim said so, he said it was good to be decent.”

“Is it?” she smiled. “Well then I’m Ella, would you like to shake my hand?”

John cried again, he couldn’t help it, he shook his head no. “I was meant to be decent. Even to stupid people. It was one of my jobs.”

“That’s a nice job,” she smiled. Why did she keep smiling? “Would you like to go sit down in your room? You haven’t eaten anything the nice staff have brought yet. Aren’t you a little hungry?”

John narrowed his eyes at her, “Why are you talking to me like that? What do you want? Are you trying to trick me? I want to see Moran.”

The lady gave him dry biscuits which made him a little sick. She said it was okay, because he hadn’t had anything to eat in a while. He had porridge instead. John liked porridge made the way Mr. Jim made it. “I want to be a sad eggroll again,” he told the lady. She didn’t understand, but the detective detected what he meant and gave him a blanket. John wrapped it around himself and went to lay in the corner.

A man with a nice suit came to watch John draw. He had an umbrella He was a little bit scary, his umbrella tapped on the floor, tap, tap, tap. John didn’t like the questions Ella asked him, questions about his drawing or when she took notes. It made him feel funny and awful. Ella asked him about feelings and had him to talk about pictures. He wanted to go home, didn’t like how she was pretending to be John’s friend but she wasn’t really. He might walk funny, and forget his big words, but he could still read his name and stuff. He knew she was writing about him.

John drew his family at the park and Mr. Jim had a duck. That hadn’t really happened, but it was a good pretend. “John,” Ella said and John flinched away from her and she made an exaspedated sigh and John wasn’t going to cry. He scooted out of his chair and went under table where Ella would stop staring at him.

He didn’t want to walk funny. He didn’t do it on purpose.

The man with the tapping umbrella made a soft sound and Ella started to say something and then stopped and walked angry out the door. Not loud angry but too hard when she walked and that was a kind of angry too. The man came and sat at the table and didn’t say anything when John touched his shoe because it was really shiny, and also soft. The man didn’t even say anything when John played with his shoelaces. He untied one and then practiced tying it again. John knew he could do it. He knew how before his words went little and he was scared all the time. The man was drawing pictures too, John wondered if Ella made her talk about the pictures.

“I’m Mycroft,” he told John.

“Can I go home?” John asked.

“No,” Mycroft said. “You won’t be able to go home ever again.”

“That’s sad,” John said very quietly. 

“I know.”

“Can I see Moran? He doesn’t sleep well. He gets sick sometimes. He needs hug.” John pulled on a shoelace. 

“Not right now, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you for not lying to me. Everybody keeps lying. I felt scared when they lied to me.” He didn’t want to come out from under the table.

“I noticed. You don’t seem scared of me at all.”

“You don’t seem scary,” John let out a bit puff of air. “You’re not tricky. Everybody keeps looking at me.”

“Is that why you can’t sleep? Because everyone is looking at you? Avoiding sleep isn’t good for you, you know,” the man had a face, like he was busy inside his head. Kind of like thoughtful. He looked thoughtfully at John and when John touched his umbrella Mycroft let John play with it. 

“No one knows how to put me to bed. They come and look at me in the night time and-” John stopped talking. He didn’t want to talk right then. He slept for a while. He woke up because he started screaming and it was loud. He had fallen asleep against the man’s leg; it was a soft trouser leg.

“I miss my father too,” the man said after John had finished pretending he wasn’t crying. “He’s gone too, like Mr. Jim.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, peering at Mycroft out from under the table. He took one of Mycroft’s hands and kissed the back of it. “Don’t be sad, it will be okay. It will be okay, don’t be sad.”

“We’ll be brave together,” the man smiled. But it was a sad smile. 

John liked Mycroft, they did puppets and did flash cards for feeling words even though John knew that Mycroft thought feelings were borings and the puppets were just Mycroft being tricky. Sometimes being tricked a little was okay if it was helpful. Mycroft helped him to remember happy things and not just Mr. Jim being gone. 

Sherlock came again. He looked really tired, Mycroft with his umbrella and his thoughtful eyes was there. He let John lean on his knee with his puppet. It was made of a sock. The sock said things for him.

Sherlock did not respect his puppet. "Are things acceptable here?" Sherlock asked him.

"Johnny is sad that his daddy is dead because of you and now Moran is going to get shot too probably," John's puppet said. "You're supposed to talk with the puppet, that's the rule."

Sherlock looked at him.

John's puppet looked at Mycroft’s puppet, "Can you ask Mycroft if we have to talk to Sherlock?"

After Mycroft and his puppet talked, the puppet said, "Unless you're scared or feel in your danger zone, Mycroft thinks it's really important to try and talk with Sherlock. He is genuinely interested in your welfare."

“Are these ridiculous things even necessary?” Sherlock flopped around his puppet.

“You’d be startled at the candor they inspire. He’s perfectly willing to communicate through a second source. I’m beginning to think my organization should have started to use puppets as an interrogation tool long ago.”

Sherlock did a big sigh. It made John giggle, when Sherlock looked at him he hid his face in Mycroft’s side. Mycroft’s side smelled fancy.

"I'm sorry your dad's dead." Sherlock didn't even try and use his puppet.

“You’re lying to me I know," John told him while his puppet watched. His puppet thought he was very brave. "But that’s okay, I’m not mad. I know you're bad, but that doesn’t mean you should be sad,” John patted Sherlock’s hand kindly. “Bad people are people too.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said. “I think you may be right.”

Sherlock was quiet and stared at John. It felt weird so John held Mycroft’s hand. “You’re bad at holding hands,” John’s puppet told him and Mycroft made a funny face.

Sherlock held out his hand, it was pale like Mr. Jim’s hand. It was warm and didn’t feel weird. His long fingers curled all around John’s hand. It looked really little and safe wrapped up like that. After a while Sherlock let John sit in his lap and then Sherlock drew a picture of a skeleton hand all realistic and John pointed at the bits he remembered. That was something that made Sherlock happy. It didn’t make John less angry at Sherlock, but he also knew it wasn’t Sherlock’s fault that Mr. Jim was sick. He let Sherlock look at his pictures, “This one is Moriarty and you in the park.”

“Moriarty was only for work,” John told him. “And the duck is pretend.” 

“That’s okay,” Sherlock said. “Lots of people pretend.”

“Mr. Jim was smart,” John told him. “He didn’t want anyone to come and take me from Moran. That’s why he shot himself in the head."

That made Mycroft quiet where he was pretending not to eavesdrop.

"Was that why?"

"Yeah, because he said you were not- were not offensively dull and would be serviceable in cleaning things up. And that you were like him. If he said he’d hurt stuff you loved you’d destroy everything. He didn’t look scared anymore when he was dead. He looked quiet.” He didn’t look at her, he looked at the picture of Mr. Jim.

“Do you know what he was scared of? Did he tell you?” Mycroft asked.

John looked at Sherlock and then put his hand up so he could whisper in the Mycroft’s ear, “He was scared about hurting me. Or he might make Moran hurt too.” John leaned back to look at Sherlock before whispering again. “Sometimes he was bad, that’s why he was scared.” He looked at Sherlock a last time before whispering, “I know what that means. I know that means he loves me.”

Sherlock was holding really tight to him with a funny look on his face, like someone had frozen his brain.

The next time Sherlock came back, he brought a puzzle with a lot of numbers, John started on the edges. “What are you doing inside this ridiculous complex all day? I would be bored out of my skull.”

“They do learning things and then they help me so I stop biting people who surprise me when I’m crying. And then I do tumbles on the exercise mat.” 

“I don’t blame you, most of Mycroft’s men are abysmally dull. They need a good biting. I’ve done my share in my day,” he wasn’t looking at John. The white badge on his coat said _VISITOR_. “Your Mr. Jim hurt people, this wasn’t just a matter of ruining some family.” 

“People are people,” he said, putting together the edges. “Even if they’re stupid, even if they’re bad. I don’t mind helping.”

“You’re surprisingly intelligent for a six year old.”

“I can do math,” John told him. “Even though my big words are gone.”

“Those will come back when you’re not mourning so severely.”

“Are you sorry Mr. Jim is dead?” John stopped and looked up to ask. He wanted to see his face.

“I’m sorry you have to go through grief at such a young age,” he told John. “It isn’t easy. But I’m glad Moriarty is gone.”

 

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” John told him. “I wanted someone to tell me the truth. Stop working on the edges, that’s my job.”

“My apologies.”

John looked up quietly, nodded, “It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” 

He pressed his lips together and tilted his head; his hair was very curly. “No one seems to know what to do with you.”

“Look! I found the corner!”

Sherlock watched him. He put his hands together under his chin. He was like Mr. Jim, but not sick. He told Sherlock that.

His eyes were light and funny looking. “Excellent work. John, I’ve never considered sharing my living space with a child, but I responsible for your current situation. And I don’t know if I’d trust you with Mycroft. Do you think you might like to stay with me for a little while? It is perfectly understandable if you object.”

“Hmm,” John said, “Hmm. Maybe.”

He smiled at John, his like-Mr.-Jim-but-not-sick smile and handed him an edge piece.


End file.
